Smithereens
by TB's LMC
Summary: Steve and Danny find themselves in a predicament. How many pieces will be left when everything is blown to smithereens? Rated for language and violence. Spoilers for the Season 1 finale.
1. Explosion

**Summary**: Steve and Danny find themselves in a predicament. How many pieces will be left when everything is blown to smithereens?

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><p><strong>SMITHEREENS<strong>

[smith-uh-reenz] –_plural noun _small pieces

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

The first thing he became aware of was that something was tickling his nose. Immediately thereafter was the knowledge that his nose was crushed, followed by the fact that it was crushed and something was tickling it because his head was resting on something nose-first.

After that, two sharp, simultaneous jolts of pain through his shoulders led to the understanding that his wrists were killing him and felt chafed, and then finally the realization that this was because he was hanging from them. He swung his feet a bit and found he could just barely reach what he assumed to be a floor with the toes of his boots.

He tried to steady himself best he could and lifted his head only to then be notified by his aching body that his head hurt twice as much as the rest of him. There was someone else breathing and it was pitch black when he forced his eyes to blink open.

"Shit," he whispered, taking a couple of deep breaths to steady himself against the pain. On the second inhale he suddenly became acutely aware of what exactly his nose had been smashed against. He'd know the combo scent of his partner anywhere. "Danny?" His voice sounded foreign to his own ears.

There was no response, so he tried again, saying the name a little louder. He received a grunt in response _Thank God, he's alive. _and inhaled again, trying to calm himself and remember what had happened that he found himself hanging next to his partner like a side of beef.

They'd gotten to Makai Pier where Chin's triangulation of about ten different pieces of cellphone and WiFi signal-based transmissions had concluded their suspect had disappeared to. Chin and Kono were going to call in the SWAT team, but since Danny and Steve had stopped for lunch not twenty minutes up Kalanianaole Highway it was a no-brainer they'd get there first.

"We're just going to see if we can pinpoint his location so the backup will know where to strike," Steve remembered assuring Danny.

"Which always," Danny said, pulling out his gun and clicking the safety off before re-holstering it, "means one of us is going to get shot. Or, at the very least, that there will be blood."

Steve had cut his eye across the seat. The gleam in his partner's eye told him he was not only there to have his back, but was going to charge in with him shoulder-to-shoulder. Like always. "What, no explosions, Danno?"

"Stop calling me that."

Smirking, Steve turned his attention back to the road. In no time, they'd reached the pier. It was raining lightly, headed for a downpour according to the forecast. But there were a lot of cars on-site, both outside the chain link fence parked along the highway, as well as clustered around the large beige warehouse and administrative offices for Makai Ocean Engineering beyond it at the end of the pier.

"You find it a little odd?" Danny asked, and Steve read in between that the rest of the words unsaid. For all his joy at blustering through a lecture about police procedure, when it came down to adrenaline-pumping brought on by chasing suspects, Danny could be downright cryptic.

Steve nodded. "No reason for Yoshitomi to have someone stashed inside Makai that I can see."

They'd arrived without lights or sirens. Steve got out of the car and eyeballed the landscape. Nothing seemed untoward, but those were usually the cases where all hell was just waiting to open up a can on them as soon as they took a step. Danny got out of the passenger side and was soon next to him, scrutinizing Kalanianaole Highway rather than the pier itself.

Steve felt, more than saw, the change in Danny's posture. "What?" he whispered, keeping his eyes on the nearer beige warehouse.

"Blue house, your four o'clock," Danny replied, turning his face up to Steve's but keeping his eyes down the road to their right.

Knowing that there wasn't going to be an easy way for him to check it out without being obvious about it, Steve hissed, "Hit me."

Danny's mouth quirked. "My pleasure," he replied, hauling back purposely with his left hand and connecting with Steve's right cheek.

Steve grunted and rolled upright along the side of the Camaro, stopping himself on the trunk, hands flat on its hot surface. Now having the perfect line of sight, he looked up at the blue house hidden behind a single row of trees. The road leading up to the house was directly opposite the Makai Pier driveway. His twenty-second glance told him there was at least one man standing outside peering through the trees at them.

Rubbing his cheek and turning to face his red-faced, hollering partner, Steve let their eyes connect and slowly Danny turned off the show, throwing his hands up as though conceding whatever the point in the argument was supposed to have been. Steve got right up in his face and pointed a finger at Danny.

"Back in the car," he said quietly before yelling at Danny to get the fuck back into the car and fucking forget about it, whatever 'it' was supposed to have been. Damn, his jaw hurt, and he wondered just how much past frustration that had taken off Danny's shoulders. He had to fight to keep from smirking at that train of thought as the engine turned over and he backed out of the Makai Pier entry.

Half a second's hesitation as Danny pulled his gun out and then Steve gunned it in reverse, making the curve and the rest of the short distance to the blue house that way. A shotgun fired, blowing Danny's window out and then Steve's. Danny cursed a blue streak and unbuckled his belt just as something small, black and round sailed past his head, bounced off the dashboard and landed in Steve's lap.

Greenish smoke billowed from it and Steve registered what it was as his body went rigid. _Zap gas! _Seconds later he was unconscious.

Now, eyes having adjusted to the dark, Steve could barely make out their surroundings. "Danny, come on, I need you alert," he said, scanning the shapes in the shadows. "We're in a basement, come on."

He got a low groan in response.

"That shit was in my lap, Danny, and I'm already conscious, come on, dammit!"

"Super fucking-"

"Don't say it," Steve growled.

Another groan. "What was it?"

"Zap gas. Haven't seen it since Qarchak."

"What the hell is Qarchak?"

"Classified."

"Fuck you."

Steve smirked. "We're strung up but I can touch the floor."

Finally Danny raised his head and Steve knew immediately from the fact that they were nearly eye-level there was no way Danny's feet could touch the floor. He felt a pang of sympathy, knowing Danny's wrists and shoulders must be about ready to dislocate as a result.

"Shit," Danny gasped as he tried to move his feet and the movement jerked on the metal clasps surrounding his wrists.

"Support yourself on me," Steve said, trying to peer beyond the furnace he saw in the far corner alongside a water heater.

"How?" Danny ground out, voice laced with pain.

"Can you swing your legs around me?" Steve asked, mind not actually on the question or his answer.

"Sure, if I want to scream like a girl when it tears my hands off my arms."

The sarcastic response got Steve's attention. "It'll take the pressure off."

"And I'll pass out in the process." Danny took a couple deep breaths. "Tell me you've got a plan."

"Working on it," Steve replied, looking up at the three-inch pipe they were chained to. Standard chain-gang type shackles, about a foot long between wrists. The pipe disappeared into the wall three feet behind Danny. Steve looked up and twisted himself around to follow the pipe in the other direction. "Damn, goes up into the floor."

"Can we...dislodge it?" Danny asked, pain making it tough for him to breathe normally.

Steve's brow furrowed as he studied what he could see. "Depends on what it attaches to up there." He heard a sharp intake of breath and whipped back around to face his partner. "Hey, you all right?"

"Fucking..._peachy_," Danny growled in response.

He could see Danny's face well enough to feel concern rise in his chest that it was a very real possibility he was going to pass out on Steve within the next couple minutes. That was when something else seeped into his consciousness. Steve cocked his head to listen, trying to pinpoint the sound. It seemed to be coming from the far corner and his eyes zoomed to the furnace.

_Whirr-click! Whirr-click! Whirr-click!_

"Shit!" he spat, jerking uselessly at the shackles. He swung his legs side to side but the pipe was solid. "Shit!"

"What?"

"Bomb," Steve replied, feeling every muscle tense in response to hearing himself say it out loud.

"-the _fuck_?" Danny swore, crying out as his involuntary attempt to get away pulled relentlessly on his wrists.

Eyes darting around the basement, Steve noted the solid concrete wall behind Danny, then looked down at his partner who panted and seemed ghastly pale even in the darkness. "You can punch me for real later," he said.

"What?"

Without taking the time to even try to explain, Steve used the soles at the tips of his boots to slam himself into Danny. The chains slid along the metal pipe and Danny very literally screamed in agonizing pain until he let out an "Oof!" as Steve's body slammed him against the wall.

"Sonofafucking-!"

Steve looked up and looped his chain up and over top of Danny's, crowding himself up against his partner as close as he could, pinning him to the wall. He hunched forward, using his biceps and shoulders to shield Danny's head and face. He felt Danny's mouth moving against the hollow of his throat and struggled to wrap his legs around his partner's waist and hips.

Steeling himself for what he knew was about to come, when the explosion sounded, all Steve was aware of was a searing pain before he knew no more.


	2. Cocoon

**Chapter Two**

"GPS has winked out on both phones."

Kono turned to look at her cousin's stoic face. "Chin..."

"We'll find them," he said, though she wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more.

The Honolulu Fire Department had reported finding no survivors. The house had blown to bits with nothing but the cavity of the basement left to show anything but tiny pieces of wood had ever been there to begin with. Debris still let puffs and wisps of smoke curl into the air, warm enough that Kono was happy for a change she'd been caught wearing her runners rather than sandals.

The shoes and her shins, knees, hands and arms were already blackened from ripping bits and pieces and piles apart trying to find Steve and Danny. Chin was in no better shape and the governor had pulled in a huge team from all over the island to help in the search alongside them and the firefighters. From the moment of the explosion to now, when they were frantically looking for the rest of Five-0, just over ninety minutes had passed.

In spite of the fact that Danny and Steve...and all of them...had survived worse over the past two years, Chin and Kono began to despair of ever seeing their friends again. Tears streaked down Kono's soot-covered cheeks as she lifted a blackened two-by-four. Chin was right behind and both of them yelped when the movement shifted debris and they went right through the pile into the actual basement.

"Kono!"

"Good. You?"

"Been better," Chin said as he rose to his feet and winced at the sharp pain in his left ankle.

"What-?" Kono's eyes were fixed to his ankle when the word came out, but as soon as they moved to to his face, everything changed. Because she _knew_ that look. She closed her eyes. "Is it them?"

"I...it looks like..." Chin moved forward as Kono opened her eyes and turned with him. "Is that...Steve?"

Their eyes were riveted to the sight of their boss's body, or as much as they could see of it. Time froze for the cousins, seemed to stand still as they took it in. A left arm, once strong and sleek and muscled now a bloody mass of tissue and bone. A back mottled with debris sticking out of it at all angles. Left hip, pants torn open, bare skin where briefs used to be torn and caked with ash and dried blood. Head bowed, a long gash running from the hairline down along the edge of his closed left eye along his cheekbone down to his neck.

Suddenly time sped up again. Chin and Kono began yelling for help as they struggled to climb up shifting debris to reach the shackles hanging from a pipe that, in spite of the explosion, was still secured to the concrete wall.

"He was protecting Danny," Chin breathed, first one to reach them and peek into the protective shell Steve had created with his body. Chin reached out a tentative hand to the right side of Steve's neck.

When his eyes closed and the ghost of a smile graced his features, Kono let out the breath she'd been holding. "Thank God," she whispered, fresh tears stinging her eyes. "Danny?"

"Alive," Chin said, voice trembling with relief.

Firefighters and at least three-quarters of the governor's search team descended upon them. It was a whirl of bolt-cutters and grunting and ladders and soot and dampness and through it all, Chin and Kono were right there. Right there when the men were cut down, chains clanking against each others', and pulled from the debris with Steve still tightly wrapped around his partner.

EMTs were on the scene, but Kono and Chin didn't back away from the solid mass that was Danny Williams cocooned by Steve McGarrett. "I can't untangle them," Kono said as she and Chin kept trying to gently pull at Steve's long legs and arms.

"If he didn't have a pulse, I'd almost say Steve had settled into rigor," Chin nodded.

Four EMTs were suddenly there, taking pulses, having to reach into the hollow created by Steve's chest and biceps to check Danny's pulse. His hair was wild, but Danny appeared to be unscathed save for the obvious broken ankle he was sporting and the angry redness of his wrists.

A firefighter got the shackles off them both, finally, and one of the EMTs looked apologetically at the other two members of Five-0. "We've got to separate them," she said, pointing at Steve. "He's lost an awful lot of blood."

Kono looked at Chin. When their eyes met, they both seemed to think the same thing, and Kono nodded. Chin's face was full of understanding when he leaned down so his mouth was right next to Steve's ear, hand resting on the less mangled shoulder. He closed his eyes and whispered, "It's Chin. Danny's safe, Steve. He's safe now, you have to let go so we can help."

Three of the four EMTs, fairly new to their positions and thus never having dealt with Five-0 before, were now looking bug-eyed and shocked as Steve's body visibly relaxed. After that, it was easy to untangle the partners, and Kono rode in the ambulance with Danny while Chin took up residence in Steve's.

The ride to the hospital wasn't really very long, but for the cousins it seemed to take hours. When the partners were rushed into the ER, they were not surprised to find that Danny's injuries were far less serious than Steve's. They were not surprised when a nurse told them Steve had already been taken to surgery. They were not surprised when, two hours later, another nurse came out to the waiting room to tell them "Detective Williams is awake and asking for Commander McGarrett."

They _were_ surprised when they entered Danny's ER slot to find tears streaming down his face. "_Brah_," Kono said, moving forward and wrapping her arms around as much of him as she could.

Chin came forward, hand resting on Kono's back, and it took every ounce of control he had not to let the stinging in his eyes go beyond and release itself. He never thought he'd see Danny cry over anything but Grace, yet here he was, wiped clean of his partner's blood, red-rimmed eyes telling them he remembered very clearly what happened.

"Where is he?" Danny asked, voice cracked and raspy.

"Surgery," Chin replied.

Danny nodded, seeming to come back to himself enough to swipe an arm across his eyes when Kono finally released him and wiped at her own.

"He's still alive, Danny," Kono said quietly, mustering a small smile. "That's something."

"Stupid bastard," Danny breathed, "used himself as a shield."

A nurse entered and fiddled with one of Danny's IV lines. "He needs to rest," she said quietly, looking first at Kono and then at Chin. "We'll be taking him down to the lab in fifteen minutes for scans to make sure there are no internal injuries."

"Thank you," Chin was the only one with the presence of mind to say. The nurse nodded and left the room. Chin turned his attention back to Danny. "Once we know for sure you're out of the woods, we'll need to talk about it, so we can try to get something to nail the Yoshitomi Group for this."

Danny's eyes closed suddenly, drowsy as painkillers coursed through his bloodstream. "Stupid bastard," he repeated as his eyes drifted shut.

Kono and Chin shared another of their looks before moving simultaneously to the door. As one unit they headed to the nurse's station. "Steve McGarrett," Chin said to the nurse on duty. "How is he?"

The nurse tapped a few things into her computer, then looked up at them. "He's going to be in surgery for a while," she replied with a sympathetic smile.

Kono looked to the right and suddenly stiffened, the first two fingers of her left hand tapping Chin's forearm. He, too, looked up and his eyes widened. "Governor," he said, thinking he should shake the man's hand but realizing he was far too covered in grime to make it anything but awkward.

"Kelly, Kalakaua," the governor said by way of greeting as his two aides simply nodded.

"Detective Williams' injuries are relatively minor so far," Chin reported. "They're taking him for X-ray and some other scans to ensure there aren't any internal injuries."

The governor nodded. "And Commander McGarrett?"

Kono's eyes darted between the governor's face and her cousin's, then back again. "He's in surgery," she replied. "It's going to be a while before we know anything."

Another curt nod. "I want you both cleaned up and then I'm ordering a temporary halt to Five-0 activities." Kono opened her mouth to protest but the governor held his hand up to silence her before continuing. "Effective immediately, one of you will remain here at all times and provide me with 30-minute updates on the conditions of Commander McGarrett and Detective Williams," he said. "The other of you will work with HPD to get the sonsofbitches who think they can come to my island and blow up _my_ task force." He hesitated, holding Kono's gaze for a few seconds and then Chin's. "Get that family out of Hawaii, and their crystal meth with them."

"Yes, sir," Kono said and Chin echoed her words. They watched as the governor and his aides departed, then she turned to Chin. "He's pissed."

"No kidding," Chin said with a small smile. "He's protective of us after everything that went down with Jameson."

"Thing is, he's as protective of Hawaii as she was, too," Kono said, still feeling a strange twinge of sadness over the events of a year ago.

"And of Five-0's image after the whole debacle with Steve being arrested for her murder."

Kono nodded. "All right," she said, determination replacing her previously crumpled features. "Let's get ourselves cleaned up. I suggest we work in ten-hour shifts. I'll take the first watch here at the hospital, okay?"

Chin allowed himself the luxury of a smile when he took in the look on her face. He knew she _needed_ to be here when word came on Steve. "All right, that's a good plan."

They walked out of the ER into a balmy Hawaiian night. Each took a few deep breaths as a black Equinox stopped right where the ambulances would normally be pulling up. A man got out of the driver's side. "The governor sent me to take each of you home," he said, coming around and holding out his hand, then getting a good look at them and thinking the better of it. "I'm Hekili."

"Thank you," Chin said as he opened the back door and Kono got in. He followed his cousin and leaned back into the seat. He smiled when Kono's hand snaked out and grasped his. Closing his eyes, he just kept repeating his mantra. Their bosses had survived. Everything was going to be okay.

It was.


	3. Guilt

**Chapter Three**

He'd lost it, okay? Yeah, he'd lost it. Because maybe two minutes before Chin and Kono had walked in, the doctor had explained it all to him. Explained how he'd been found _He was cocooned around you, the EMT said_, wrapped in his partner. How his partner _You stupid bastard, what the hell were you thinking with a stunt like that_ had used his own body as a shield. How a bomb had exploded, leveling the house, how nobody was quite sure about the miracle that Steve, Danny ensconced between himself and a concrete wall, had survived.

He'd never lost a partner while on active duty with them. He'd had backup and partners and police officers watching his ass his entire career, but this? This was a whole new level of insanity he'd never had to deal with until the day he'd walked into a crime scene and been confronted by a gun-wielding _It's my crime scene now_ vendetta-driven I-could-kill-you-with-my-hangnail Steven J. McGarrett. This, right here, was not something Danny was at all equipped to handle.

And so, yeah, he'd lost it. Okay?

But more accurately, the thing that had made him lose it, even more than the overwhelming realization of what Steve had done to save his life, was Danny's knowledge of exactly _why_ Steve had done it to begin with. He knew, that if Steve was standing here right now in front of him, this is how the conversation would go.

"What the hell were you thinking, Steven? You could've been killed! Why did you do that?"

Steve would meet his gaze, arms folded across his chest. He'd have a myriad of looks cross his face, some of which Danny knew he wouldn't be able to identify no matter how well he knew McGarrett. He'd suck in a breath, Danny could see it as if it were actually happening, and he'd get that frown and he'd say one word.

"Grace."

And _that_, if he had to be honest and examine feelings here, was what had really broken the dam because that one single word unleashed an explosion all its own inside him. Just the very _idea_ of Rachel having to tell his little girl her father had died because he'd gotten himself blown to smithereens...the look he imagined seeing on Grace's face as it crumpled and her big gigantic tears began, made the waterworks start.

Hey, he was a father, so sue him for wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Still and all, now that he'd gotten past the what-ifs about Grace having to learn her Danno was gone, all he felt was anger. Yeah, sure, of course he was glad to be alive...hello, self-preservation in all living things and all that...but now as Kono and Chin purposefully strode out of the room g_oddamn Wonder Twins, swear to God_ he was consumed with another thing that had only reared its head three times in his life so far, and all three of those times it'd been all about his family, both the traditional ones and the _ohana_.

Guilt.

Yeah, so, there it was, and it was guilt.

First time had been because of his marriage not working out. He'd been sure back then that he could've kept Rachel somehow, that her wanting a divorce had to have been his fault because let's face it, he was a package of bluster and he was a volatile man _emotionally, that is, I don't get violent unless it's in the line of duty_ and he was pretty damn sure he was shit to live with day in and day out. Hey, a cop, what can you do, you know? Cops are a different breed altogether but Danny, or so Rachel had told him, was...and what was funny here and now that made him actually laugh out loud was he'd called _Steve_ this...a Neanderthal animal.

Yep, so now you know where that one came from. Rachel had called him that, he'd called Steve that...never-ending cycle on name-calling, apparently.

And so the next time he'd felt guilt, that had been courtesy of the look Grace had given him at the airport in Newark the day Rachel and _fucking_ Step-Stan had taken his baby girl to Hawaii. As the tears rolled down Grace's face, as he gave her a hug and told her Danno loves her...as she walked away slowly with her hand in Rachel's and Danny stood with his arms folded over his chest, he'd felt guilt. Guilt because his baby was an emotional wreck, because he'd fucked it all up somehow and now she was moving a million miles away from him.

His decision to follow her to Hawaii had been made the second she'd disappeared through Security.

All right, so maybe that moment of guilt had actually led to something good. Only, yeah, not so much, because him coming to Hawaii had led to the third time he'd ever felt guilty over something, and goddamn if that hadn't had to do with Steve. It had been one year, two weeks and four days ago that he'd been prepared to just up and fly off into the sunset with his still-married ex-wife, his daughter and what he'd thought was his unborn child.

But he'd missed the flight because the call had come out that there were shots fired at the governor's residence. Danny pressed his head back into the stupidly flat hospital pillow and squeezed his eyes closed. He'd known it was Steve, how could it have been anyone else? He would have known...no, strike that, _had_ known...Steve wasn't just going to go lay down and take a fucking nap because his partner had told him to. He'd known him way too long to have expected that to happen.

And yet, all because Rachel had wanted to see him, see him to tell him she was pregnant with his baby and was going to leave Stan, because the married woman he'd been having an affair with wanted to meet him in some clandestine spot, he left his partner alone. And look at the fucking mess _that_ had been. It had taken them three months with red tape and dealing with the new governor and Kono's IA charges and his trust issues with Chin to get Steve out of that cell.

Guilt? Yeah, Danny had felt guilt every hour of every day of those three months. Three months, two days and thirteen hours and yes, Danny was _that_ anal retentive and his memory _was_ that good. When important things happened, you remembered every detail about them, and the guilt he'd felt about having left his partner to his own devices, the guilt that had deepened when he'd found out not only was Rachel not actually pregnant, claiming it to have been a false positive, but had really just wanted out of her marriage and was using Grace to use Danny to do it...Danny balled his fists and pounded them into the hospital mattress beneath him.

Nope, still wasn't over that one yet. The bitch.

That guilt had been assuaged when Stan and Rachel had worked things out, when Rachel and Grace had come back to Hawaii after a three-month stay with friends and family in New Jersey. After all the shit with Steve and the governor's murder had died down because, and Danny had agreed with Rachel here one hundred percent, Grace did _not_ need to be exposed to the media sensation that was 'The Downfall of Five-0' at that point.

The guilt had further been assuaged _Hey, I like that word, all right_ the day he'd waited leaning against the hood of his car, arms crossed, chewing on his bottom lip, for his partner to walk out of the damn prison as a free and cleared man. The media hadn't known it was going to happen. Sometimes it was really good to have a new governor not only want the task force to stay in place, but to be hell-bent on cleaning up its image so it could continue cleaning up Hawaii.

Danny smiled, muscles relaxing just a bit, when he remembered Steve with his khaki cargo pants and his black polo shirt and his small duffle slung over his shoulder walking towards him like he'd only been in there interrogating someone for an hour, and not in there wearing oranges and being treated like a criminal for three months. Three months, two days and thirteen hours and there he was.

He was pale. He had dark circles under his eyes. But the smile he'd given Danny was genuine. He remembered every minute thing about the moment: the sound of the duffle slipping from Steve's hand and thudding to the concrete; the shallow breathing of his partner and Danny's own blood pounding in his ears; the way Danny, in his usual way, decided he had to make the first move and said, "Vacation's over, bitch," like it would somehow put salve on the gaping wound; and the way Steve's smile had turned into an all-out grin that had made heart-on-his-sleeve Danny open up his arms and envelop the _goddamn gargantuan goofball_ man in a bear hug that had made his own arms hurt.

That same Steve who was now under the knife, or several knives, more than likely...the irony of which for a man who loved to wield blades as much as guns was not lost on Danny, of course...for returning the favor. His mind zoomed back to that day.

They had hugged for what seemed like forever, but when Danny had checked his watch hadn't even been a minute. When they'd parted, Danny had rubbed his neck and Steve had picked up his duffle and it had felt awkward, yeah, but half the time Danny was around Steve it _was_ awkward, so that was something familiar...yeah, okay, and what the hell did that say about Danny, anyway? He huffed out a laugh now as he remembered turning toward the passenger door, absentmindedly tossing the keys in Steve's general direction.

He heard the clank of Steve catching the keys. The doors opened, the duffle got tossed in the back seat. The windows were open and the breeze wafted through, ruffling Danny's hair as usual. His hand went through it and when it came away he was very aware of eyes on him, so he turned to look at Steve. "See, told you I'd get you out of this," he'd said almost defensively, because he wasn't even sure what to do with that look Steve had on his face at this point.

"You saved my life," Steve had said, and whoa, that right there was a very, very serious face indeed. Steve had turned to look back out the windshield as he started the Camaro in one fluid motion. His hands gripped the steering wheel, and the next words came out in a whisper. "Thank you."

Danny had cleared his throat and deflected, after all, that's what guys did, and the fact was...if nothing he was sure he wouldn't want to know about anyway had happened to Steve in prison to change it...neither of them were women. So yeah, he'd deflected and said, "Well, it's been too goddamn boring out here, I missed the excitement in my life so I thought yeah, you know? Yeah, we need to get McGarrett out here, blow up a few buildings, drive a few cars onto ships, get into a few fistfights and the gun battles my friend, I tell you, I haven't been shot at _once_ since you decided to take your little Leave of Absence, and that right there is just _un_acceptable in my book."

That had brought out the crooked half-shit-eating-grin his partner sported from time to time that could've meant so many things Danny never bothered to even try to think of one of them because, you know, a guy just didn't go there, really.

But this? Right here and right now, this thing that had happened where Steve had used his body _you were cocooned_ to protect Danny, where Steve was now fighting for his life in an OR? This was just plain bullshit and yeah, now the anger was big, it was huge, it was so fucking big Danny really needed to get to a punching bag and beat the shit out of something.

He winced as he moved his arms. All right, okay, he'd wait until his shoulders and wrists stopped feeling like he'd been on the Rack for a week and _then_ he'd hit the gym, but shit.

"_You can punch me for real later."_

If...no, _when_, his mind corrected him, _when_...Steve made it out of surgery and got his shit together and was relatively healed up, Danny was going to take him up on that because...okay, and this logic worked...because while he now had a new pang of guilt to add to this repertoire, guilt that him having Grace and loving her as much as he did had caused Steve to _cocoon_ use his own body as a shield _stupid bastard_ to save Danny's life...

Danny rubbed a hand down the scrub on his face. Yeah. When Steve was just enough healed that he could take it, Danny was going to punch him for real. Give Steve a whole fresh new bruise to go with the rest he'd undoubtedly have. After all, they were guys, and their way of expressing themselves was different. Sure, Danny would go on and on in his usual way, he knew he would, about what were you thinking, Steve? And what the hell do you think your skin's made of, titanium? And a myriad of other things he was sure would come to mind in the moment, all covering for _you're alive to feel this_.

And Steve would understand what that punch meant. Because he'd be alive to feel it, to reel from it, to hold his jaw at the flash of pain...to grin at Danny in silent understanding.

That was all Danny Williams wanted right now. To punch his partner for saving his life.


	4. Injuries

**Chapter Four**

Three people hovered in the door of the ICU room. They were all fairly certain they'd never seen that many machines, tubes, wires or screens surrounding a single human body before. Ever. The woman took a deep, shuddering breath. Her cousin's fingertips rested gently on the small of her back, providing her the steadying calm she needed even as his own breath hitched in his chest. When they turned their heads to look at their companion, a shared look of concern passed between them because he was still. Far too still for the man they knew.

"You can go in," came a soft female voice from behind them. Danny's quick flinch didn't escape either cousin's notice. "I would suggest talking to him is a good way to start. They can hear you even when they're in a coma, you know."

"Will do," Chin said, voice low and calm. He lifted his left hand and placed those fingertips against the small of Danny's back in a mirror of Kono's, and gently pushed them both into the room just ahead of him.

"Doesn't even hardly look like him," Kono observed as she broke away from Chin's touch and rested her hands on the metal bar of the hospital bed. "Look at all the stuff he's hooked up to."

"What are his injuries?" Danny's gravelly voice asked, and Chin handed him the iPad the doctor had given him at Chin's continued insistence (under penalty of death, maybe, and threats of calls to the governor's office, absolutely).

Danny took the iPad and began scrolling through it. He needed to deal in facts, not in what Steve looked like laying there before them. Not in the fact that he already looked dead, something which would definitely mess with Danny's very visceral need to punch him.

"Damage to the occipital lobe," Danny murmured, eyes glued to the screen. "Unable to test PT, well even I know that means 'patient,' for optical symptoms."

"Optical symptoms?" Kono repeated.

"They can't tell whether his vision's been affected, I'd guess," Chin offered, getting nods from both Kono and Danny.

Danny moved his finger an inch down the iPad screen. "Masseter repaired, mandible wired."

"Well, at least I know mandible is jaw," Chin commented. "Masseter?"

Kono leaned closer to peer at the left side of Steve's face. "I'm guessing maybe the muscle around the outside of his jaw given where the stitches are."

"Makes sense," Chin agreed. "They must have wired his jaw to keep from re-tearing the muscle."

"You two should've been doctors," Danny quipped, though there was no mirth in the statement as he scrolled down again. "Complete repair of biceps brachii, restoration of humerus, artificial replacement of trochlea." Danny shook his head, face making it clear he was getting a headache. "How did they dumb it down enough for us to understand it but still make it impossible to know what the hell they're talking about?"

"His arm's pretty mangled, which makes sense considering it was his left side facing the bomb," Kono replied, lightly touching plaster cast covering Steve's entire arm. "Why are we doing the laundry list thing, anyway?" she asked, then bit her lip.

"Nurse said to talk, so I'm talking," Danny replied absentmindedly. He scrolled down and winced at the shattered and repaired hip bone comment. "Leg got mangled too," he reported.

"What about his back?" Chin asked.

"A pin cushion, from what this says," Danny said, the look on his face growing more pinched. Then he saw something that made a breath whoosh from his lungs.

"What?" Chin asked, coming to stand close enough to read the iPad held in Danny's hands. Danny didn't reply, knuckles growing whiter as he gripped the small flat-screen harder.

"What?" Kono echoed at the look on Danny's face.

"Lost his left kidney," Chin reported. "_Ke Akua_."

Kono laid one hand on Danny's forearm and the other on Chin's. "Guys, maybe we should stop the medical exam here and just _talk_ to him."

Chin shook his head. "I've got to get back to the palace," he said. "My shift on the case."

"Know what?" Danny said. "I'm coming with you."

"You've been released?" Kono asked, surprised.

Danny put the iPad down on a nearby table, closed his eyes and then reopened them, looking directly at Steve's still, pale form. "No," he whispered. "But we need more Five-O on this." _Because I want to nail the bastard who did this_, was the implied completion to that sentence.

"Then you stay here with him, _brah_," Kono said, squeezing his arm before letting her hand fall back to her side. "Chin and I, we'll coordinate things back at HQ, keep your phone on you."

"Yeah," Chin said, patting Danny's shoulder. "We'll take care of rooting out the Yoshitomi Group, finding out who got you. You take care of Steve."

Danny frowned, but nodded. "Only until I'm released."

"Deal," Kono said with a small smile.

Watching them as they left the room, Danny stood in the ridiculous green disposable hospital slippers, paisley gown tied tightly around his waist and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't even know what to do, where to go, what to say. For all the talking he always did when Steve was alive and well and making faces and biting comebacks in the car or in the field, at this very moment Danny couldn't for the life of him figure out what to say. What did you say to a man who was in an induced coma until the swelling on his brain went down enough to be at what the doctors considered 'acceptable levels?'

He fell back on the only familiar thing he had here, the only thing that made any sense at all in the midst of the confusion and pain and regret and guilt jumbling around inside him. The only thing he could cling to and understand. He fell back on his anger over the stupid stunt.

"What the hell, McGarrett," he said, not really feeling any sting to the words as yet. "I mean, just...what the hell?" Danny looked around the room. There were two really ugly dark pink fake leather armchairs on the opposite side from the bed, and so he went and grabbed one, dragging it over to where he could be near Steve's head, ignoring the sharp stab of pain from the ankle he knew he wasn't supposed to be walking on at all. If his nurse found out, she'd have his head, but at the moment he didn't care.

"You don't do anything halfway do you, Steve?" Danny asked and this time there was a little more venom in the question. "I mean, Christ, you think you're Superman or something, Man of Steel, huh, is that it? You've been through so many classified missions, in and out of so many life-and-death situations around the globe that you decided to come back home to do what? Prove to yourself that you really are what you think you are instead of face the truth that you're just a goddamn human being?"

He felt the familiar heat of a tirade bubbling up within him and yeah, this was something Danny could do, this he knew. Give Steve as much hell as he could because he was pissed _off_, goddammit.

"It's not like I'm not grateful, and I can tell you right now that my daughter is more than happy her Danno's alive, she was here earlier this morning but they wouldn't let her in to see you, you know she actually _begged_ to come see you, and what is that about, anyway? You see, the thing here, Steve, this thing here," he said, hands waving around even though the action hurt like a bitch, "the thing here is that my kid, my beautiful and perfect little nine-year old daughter who is the light of my life, well, for some reason she's decided she loves you enough to cry when she finds out you're this _broken_. Do you know what that means, asshole? That means if you die, I'll have to tell my beautiful, perfect, angelic, innocent little girl that her Steve is _gone_, that she's never going to his house again, never going to get a hug from him again, and what the _hell_, Steve, you think I want to do that?"

Danny took a deep breath, chest heaving with something more than the rant making it happen, but he wasn't about to go there and quashed it while he stilled his shaking hands and got his breathing back under control.

"Not going to happen, my friend, because you are going to be just fine, and you're going to be Superman and heal up so fast from all this," he waved a hand over the entirety of the bed, "that you'll be back to normal in no time, you know, using me for your only backup, that sort of daily crap you put me through."

Rising to his feet, Danny ran a hand through his hair over and over again, pacing from the door back to the bed over and over again, everything repeating so he didn't have to think about it, wondering if he really could wear a groove in the floor with the stupid slippers. He felt heat rising from his belly into his chest, flushing up his neck and over his face until it felt like his hair was standing on end. Breaths coming too fast again, imagining the look on Kono's face, seeing something in Chin's eyes that his stoic countenance wouldn't belie, tears streaming down Grace's face if he had to tell them all Steve hadn't made it.

Hadn't made it all because he'd protected Danny instead.

"Yeah, sure, I know you would've done the same for Kono or Chin," Danny said, hands flapping again. "I know if it had been Kono there instead of me, if it had been Chin, or anyone, really, you would've done it. I'm not special in your attempts to prove your big, bad SEAL shit here on this island, and I know it." He stopped mid-stride near the door, pivoted and rushed back to Steve's beside as quick as his painfully sprained ankle would allow. "But this time, it was me you did this to, and the reason you did it is the same reason I'm telling you now that you will not only recover from this, but you will be back to new in no time and-"

He just cut himself off, sinking exhausted into the ugly pink chair. He needed something, some sign from Steve, but knew none would be forthcoming. The doctor had said it could be weeks before they even tried to bring Steve out of the induced coma, and the injuries he'd sustained would take much, much longer than that to heal.

Thinking of weeks or months from now made Danny wonder if Steve would ever physically be able to do his job again. Yeah, people could recover. He even had known a cop in Jersey would been smashed all to hell by a drunk driver T-boning his Toyota, but the cop had not only survived and healed, but was back in the field eighteen months later. They always joked they knew when a storm was coming though, because the metal rod in Jerry's hip had given him shit when a system was on the way.

He chuckled. Of course Steve would make a full recovery. He was in the best shape a guy could be in. The two of them spent hours at the HQ building's basement gym together lifting weights, using the treadmill and every other piece of equipment it sported. Then there were Steve's daily swims and cardio sessions whenever work gave him time for them. Nobody was in better shape than Steve, and that meant his odds were better than most peoples', and the doctors had said as much not two hours before.

But really, this whole thing, this waiting thing, was just bullshit. Danny needed to be busy, and he decided the best thing he could do was see how fast he could get himself out of the hospital and back with Kono and Chin. He picked his iPhone up off the bedside table and texted Chin that nothing had changed, and that he was heading back to his own room. Luckily the governor's standing order for either Chin or Kono to stay at the hospital had gone by the wayside as soon as the man had understood Steve would be out of it for a while. The more Five-O on the case, the better Danny felt.

Now to get well enough to join them. He rose to his feet and found himself hobbling terribly on his damn ankle. He looked down at Steve one more time before turning to leave the room.

Danny hated him so much right now.


	5. Takedown

**Chapter Five**

The day the team of specialists Five-O had come to know on a first-name basis brought Steve McGarrett out of the induced coma they'd put him into sixteen days prior, nobody but medical staff was there to witness it. Not that anything monumental happened, besides the fact that Steve's brain was kind enough not to explode and kill him instantly, and that every single monitor stayed the same. When Chin got the notification from the head nurse handling Steve in ICU, and relayed it to his colleagues, it was in the midst of one of the fiercest gun battles Five-O had ever been part of.

They'd found the heads of the Yoshitomi Group all right, and true to form they were outgunned by at least ten times Five-O's complement on a good day. The arsenal that Danny, Kono and Chin had brought with them was backed up within minutes by every available HPD officer and some who'd gotten called in and were therefore still dressed in civvies covered by TAC vests. There were more cars and vans and trucks in the vicinity of the beach house in which the kingpins were currently trapped than Danny had ever witnessed on a single bust.

Kono and Chin whispered fiercely with the chief while Danny moved with a dozen HPD officers to a grove of Naio that would, realistically, not protect them from bullets, but which provided good enough cover for Danny to issue a few short, sharp commands that had the officers nodding and soon fanning out to surround the east side of the house while Danny and a lieutenant provided them with some serious bullet-spraying cover.

This was it. They had to either get them into custody or kill them all, and Danny knew which he preferred because in spite of the fact that today was Steve's live-or-die-optional day, no matter which way it went he wouldn't be able to face the aftermath unless he _knew_ the bastards who'd caused the whole thing to begin with were taken care of. The cop side of him warred with the you-tried-to-blow-us-up-and-nearly-killed-my-partner side. For the first time in his life, the need to actually kill rather than be concerned about legal justice gripped his insides like a vise.

And that right there was more than just a little unnerving. Danny peeked out from the largest Naio tree and Lieutenant Mahaulu leaned out from the other side of the grove. Danny decided not to think too much about the fact that just knowing Steve had apparently made him as much of a lunatic as he'd always accused his partner of being. When the hell did Danny Williams ever seek _revenge_?

In a sudden moment of complete clarification, he finally got it. He finally understood the look in McGarrett's eyes every time some lead on Hesse or Wo Fat had come their way. When Jenna Kaye had joined them, when Hills had been murdered. Understood exactly why Steve had chosen to confront Jameson rather than take a nap, and it had nothing to do with having a death wish at all. It had to do with revenge.

No, he wasn't stupid, he managed to think as he let another spray of bullets loose and eight more officers showed up in his and Mahaulu's Naio grove. He barked at them to get around to the west where there was admittedly less cover than the east side, but he had a piece of artillery that would've put a gleam in Steve's eyes and he wasn't afraid to use it. No, he didn't really know how to shoot a bazooka, but he knew it would have a kick and so as soon as the officers began moving, he fired.

Knocked him on his ass, which he quickly recovered from, lamenting that it had hit his left shoulder and shit, that was going to leave a fresh bruise on top of the fading one from having been strung up like a side of beef. But still, he wasn't stupid, as an explosion from the house led to screaming in Japanese and a fireball that Steve would have been mesmerized by. Danny wasn't stupid because all the while, logically, he'd known Steve taking the task force job had been about avenging his father's death. Which had turned into also avenging his mother's death, and that's what had driven Steve all along.

Yeah, Danny knew that. But because he'd never felt anything like it, he hadn't _known_ it.

Chin raced up to him in a running crouch, clapped him on the back, gave him a wink and headed into the fray. Danny dropped the bazooka to the sand and nodded at Mahaulu as he pulled his nine mil from its holster. Time to bring the shit _down_.

Ten minutes, ten very short and very long minutes combined later, it was over. Kono was sporting a developing bruise on her right cheekbone and a trickle of blood on her left arm, but she was making up for it by zip-tying Ayumu Sato's hands so tightly behind his back that the sixty-something head of the group in question was begging for mercy. At least, that's what it sounded like, though none of them spoke Japanese.

Chin was pushing five cuffed group members out the front door of the beach house, which was way more wrecked than it had any right to be in the still beauty of a Hawaiian afternoon, headed for the paddy wagon that was waiting out in the driveway. Danny was speaking quickly with the governor on the phone, explaining that not only had they taken the Yoshitomi Group down for good, but that four simultaneous raids in Wahiawa, Lihue, Kahului and Kalaoa were going down as they spoke to nab the crystal meth stashes Yoshitomi had strategically placed throughout the islands of Hawaii.

The governor was pleased. Chin re-entered the house as the call ended and their eyes met. Kono approached them, shoving Sato at two female officers who very happily escorted him outside. Chin's eyes darted to his cousin's and then back to Danny. Not a word was spoken as the three filed out of the house, removing their vests as they walked to Kono's car. All three vests got tossed into the back seat with Danny as Chin slid into the front passenger seat and Kono started the engine.

The ride was silent until they were almost at the hospital parking lot. Kono looked at Danny in the rearview mirror, a small smile breaking the tension in the car. "Steve would have fallen in love with you today if he'd been there," she said, grin widening. "Bazooka?" she teased. "Really?"

Danny snorted out a laugh and Chin chuckled. "He's rubbing off on me," Danny said by way of a defense he didn't really mean.

Kono parked the car and the three of them checked each other over to make certain they were at least moderately presentable to walk into a hospital ICU ward without getting too many stern glares from the staff. Chin used the inside of his shirt to wipe the dried blood from Kono's arm. Kono rubbed a black mark from the left side of Danny's neck and Danny brushed some ash from Chin's right shoulder. Suitable for consumption, their faces seemed to confirm, and shoulder-to-shoulder they made their way to their fallen leader's room.

Everyone got out of their way. If it wasn't the steely determination in their eyes, maybe it was the brick wall they presented when they unconsciously refused to move out of step even once as they made their way through the corridors. Kono in the middle, Chin to her right and Danny to her left were Five-O, badges prominently on display, weapons holstered but not hidden from view. Even though most everyone they passed knew them on a first-name basis, no one stopped them or tried to converse with them.

When they reached the door to Steve's room, they stopped and seemed to take in a breath together and exhale it together. The same nurse from the very first time they'd stood there suddenly appeared behind them as though her sole purpose was to watch for them, and give them the one piece of advice they needed before they could proceed.

"He's deciding," she said softly, and all three turned to look at her. "Give him something to come back for."

Three pairs of eyes exchanged looks and only because they wouldn't fit three abreast through the door, they shifted into a single file with Danny leading the way. Chin went to the other side of the bed, leaving Kono and Danny on the near side. Six hands gripped the metal rails, and Five-O leaned forward just a bit. Chin looked at Danny and smiled. Kono elbowed Danny in the arm.

"We got 'em, partner," Danny said. "Now get better so I can give you what you promised me I could."

Kono raised an eyebrow that mirrored her cousin's from across the way.

"Get your minds out of the gutter," Danny muttered good-naturedly. His eyes didn't leave Steve's face. "The governor says we have only one job now," he continued, voice steady and sure. "And that is to get his task force leader back in place, so here's how we're going to do it." He looked up at Chin. "I've got Grace this weekend, starting twenty minutes from now, so Chin's taking first shift and we're going to read to you, we're going to talk to you, we're going to tell you how it's going to be from here on out, and you're going to listen to every word and you're going to heal and you're going to take this job back that I do _not_ want."

Kono grinned.

"And then, Kono's taking the next shift, and then after that, tomorrow morning when my daughter is freshly scrubbed and sufficiently stuffed full of unhealthy breakfast cereal, she is going to come here and she's going to read you the book she has to finish as part of this weekend's homework, and then you're going to listen while I help her write her book report. And then I'm taking her to the zoo and Jenna's going to come and talk to you about her latest investigation into the Yakuza and that's just how it's going to be because right now, partner, I'm in charge and you can't do a damn thing about it until you wake up and start ordering me around again."

"You know," Chin said with a wry grin, "you could've said that in about a tenth of that many words."

"Not what he's expecting," Danny said, nodding down toward the bed. "Everything normal, right?"

"From where I'm standing, yeah," Kono said, elbowing Danny again and trying to refrain from letting out a giggle. "Come on, Current Boss, let's go help HPD wrap this up while Cuz starts working his magic."

Danny nodded, resisting the urge to reach out and actually touch Steve in one of the few places not covered by casts or bandages or tubes or wires, just to reassure himself of the fact that Steve was going to stick around after all. Secretly, though, he knew that in spite of his previous assurances to himself, right now at this very moment he neither hated Steve nor wanted to punch him. Because Steve making it through coming out of the coma meant Steve would be Steve again, even if he was minus a kidney and even if he had a pin or rod or two scattered throughout his body.

Steve was on the way, and if Danny had to spend the next two years getting him back to the top where he belonged he would because, well, yeah, that's just what partners did. He looked at Chin and then Kono again. That's what your team did for you. That's what your _ohana_ did for you. No matter how much you felt hatred for someone risking their necks for you, once you realized that the hatred was more at yourself for how you reacted to the thought of that someone actually dying to save your life, the fuse just sort of went out, for better or for worse.

And so they'd take that. They'd take the fact that maybe Danny's bluster had lost an awful lot of its edge, seeming to resign itself to the fact that really, that's all it had ever been to begin with, was bluster. That maybe Kono would never get the image of Steve cocooned around Danny out of her mind's eye for the rest of her life. That maybe Chin would never stop being concerned even when Steve was at one hundred percent, that he'd get himself and Danny into some other half-crazy stunt that would put them all right back here in this very same position.

It would be a long road. Nobody kidded themselves about that. And eventually the governor would need his task force out running someone down or mowing someone over or hauling someone in, and all before Steve was ready to be in charge again, but that was okay, too. Because they were Five-O, and that meant a lot more to them all than just engraved letters on a badge. It meant everything, and in spite of Danny's protestations, the cousins pretty much figured the punch would be forthcoming at some point when Steve decided to piss Danny off on purpose just to get it.

Because that's how they were. None of them individually really made sense without the others anymore. It was what it was and not a single one of them would have it any other way.

Danny looked down at Steve as Kono let out a small gasp. He couldn't help the smile that burst forth on his face as his partner's eyelids began to flutter. In spite of everything, Steve and Kono and Chin Ho had given him a reason _not_ to hate Hawaii after all.

But there was no way he'd _ever_ let _Steve_ know that, no matter how indescribably beautiful his eyes looked when at last they became visible and focused directly on his.

Danny Williams had an image to maintain, after all.


End file.
